Reminders
by Fallen Grace
Summary: A morbid, short little fic from Snape's POV. I just sort of felt like I *had* to do this, so I apologize for it's, um, lack of... quality? I don't suppose I could get you to read it anyway, could I?


****

Reminders

__

A/N: OK, maybe not an original title. Sorry, It's my bedtime, I'm not feeling especially creative. My muse has abandoned me! Well, I hope you like this story. I wouldn't suggest it to you if you don't like Snape, though. And to anyone who might be waiting for the next part of my series (sorry to anyone who isn't), I promise you it will be up soon. This is just my little break, what can I say? Er... I hope you like it. If you do, would you PLEASE review? It would mean a *lot* to me, it really would. Yep, kay, so now that this boring author's note is over... 

Potter has his mother's eyes. Piercing, brilliant green, they are. Green has always been my favorite color (the color of Slytherin, snakes, and pickles) and yet... I **detest** Potter's eyes. They are always seeking me out, silently accusing me of all that has been done to him and all that I have done to him, and all that I have done in my past. They are silent reminders of the evils I have seen and committed, and the memories I have tried so hard to bury in the life I now lead. 

I am thirty-seven years old; I am a Potions professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry; I have oily hair that I do not bother to fix, because it suits the image I uphold; I am universally hated by all the students, except the ones I pretend to favor. I have more going for me than I ever would have imagined fourteen years ago. I have no reason to be unhappy. 

But the deranged fragment of my soul that has not been destroyed by the bitterness that now controls my very being is not happy, is miserable. I have no right to be, and I know that. I have absolutely **no right at all** to be upset with my circumstances. I do not deserve them. I deserve much, much worse. 

I wish I had faith to guide me, but I don't. If I ever had any faith, I lost it when I came to the Dark Side. Or, was it before? I hardly know myself anymore. I must begin at the beginning. 

I was born on December 31, 1963, to David and Katerina Snape. Contrary to the popular saying, "The apple never falls far from the tree," my parents were not half so cold and apathetic as I. My mother in particular, a mouse-like busybody with thin black hair that was always flying everywhere, was as kind-hearted as any Snape ever was. She was a wonderful influence on my father; he became a better man throughout all the time he was married. They tried to raise me the best way they knew how. 

But I was born the way I am. No matter how many times they heaped values and concern on me, I am a firm believer that absolutely **nothing **they could have done would have changed a single thing I did in the future. 

I was always wayward. Even though, as their only child, my parents heaped attention on me, they could not check what was meant to happen. I was fascinated by the Dark Arts. To this day, I don't know what drew me to them, but drawn to them I was. I became obsessed. My parents did not believe there was anything wrong with it; I was still a perfectly decent boy at that time. 

I went to Hogwarts; I was promptly, and unsurprisingly, sorted into Slytherin. I made friends there, in my first week. They, like me, were destined to become something evil, but of course none of us knew that then. All I knew was that something inside me **clicked** when I met them. I felt like I was meeting my soulmates. 

And of course, I had my enemies. I don't blame Potter and his crowd for hating me. God knows **now** I see the errors in what I did then, but at the time, I had a great love for myself. It caused me to hate him. 

Now, so very many years later, when I have had so much time to reflect on it all, I have come to believe that there was something more to my blind abhorrence of him than I ever thought before. I see now that I was jealous, in the deepest part of my mind. Potter was normal; Potter had friends, greater friends than I ever did; Potter could play Quidditch like nobody's business. Had it not been for me – well, not me specifically, but I do blame his death on myself – and the Dark Lord, I do believe he would have made a fine player in the professional league. 

I wanted what Potter had. I wanted to be happy and normal. I believe that I would have traded ten years of my life for one day – one **day **– when I wasn't bitter, when I didn't "see red" constantly, when I could just be... sane. 

But no matter what I did, I could not be James Potter. He broke all the rules, and was still ten times the student and man I was and ever have been. I detested him for that. 

It only added to my natural rebelliousness. As the years passed, I became more and more unrecognizable as human as I fell into the dark crowd. 

My father had a heart attack when I was in my seventh year. I blamed myself for his death, probably rightly so. I think the stress of watching me throw myself into a downward spiral was what did him in. I did not, of course, tell anyone that. 

My mother lived for my father and me, but I was too distant from her, in miles and otherwise, to supply what she needed after my father's death. Less than seven months later, she was buried next to him in the Snape family plot. Neither was alive for my graduation. 

It was not long after I was sucked into the Death Eaters. Voldemort was the only hope I had left. He was just the thing to feed the rage growing inside of me. 

Soon I was helping him gain the power I believed he deserved, I believed **I** deserved. I tortured Muggles and Wizards, killed I don't know how many, and found some sort of hard comfort in the business. 

Without meaning to sound poetic, their screams were not enough to drown out the terrible silence within my mind. It was driving me insane. I could hear nothing but the silence. 

After ten years of that life, I finally grew so sick of it that I could barely see straight. I think I was afraid to leave; not afraid of Voldemort, because I didn't value my own life at all anymore. I was more afraid of the fact that if I left, I would have nothing to distract me from my gloomy contemplation. 

I was in need of a catalyst, and even in the depraved state-of-mind I was now in, I could sense that. One night, I went out for a walk around my childhood home in the dark. It stormed ferociously, and the darkness and the cold, biting rain and the howling of the wind as I stood on a once-green hilltop all made the night seem unearthly. Moved by a kind of blind faith I had not felt in years and have not felt since, I prayed to God, I suppose, to help me, send me a sign, whatever, if He had any compassion at all. 

I stayed out in the storm until it died down, though I was at great risk of being blown off the ground. I screamed at the wind, I probably even cried a little. All I really know is that I was there the next morning. 

And after that, for some reason I am to this day convinced was fate, I Apparated to Diagon Alley to kill time before a meeting in Knockturn Alley with Lucius Malfoy later that day. I walked around the square, watching the happy families. The bright sunlight was a startling contrast to my mood. 

I then did something I had not done in years: I bought ice cream. Pickled mint walnut. It was good, too. I sat on a bench and slurped and pretty much let it dribble down my chin like a slobbering little brat. 

I thought about the last time I'd eaten an ice cream cone. I thought about my life at Hogwarts. I thought about my parents. I thought about my life then. I thought about the things I'd done, the things I would probably continue to do if I stayed with Voldemort. 

Then I realized that no matter what I did, I would always be wretched. I couldn't find any more comfort in evil than in good. Didn't it make sense to be wretched doing what my parents would have wanted me to do? For no matter what, I always have felt that they watch me. I can close my eyes and see they're faces, though the lines have become a little blurry over the years. 

I finished my ice cream cone, wiped my chin on my sleeve, and summoned my courage before owling Dumbledore. He met me in the very spot fifteen minutes later, good man. 

He listened to my story silently, though with a twinge of hesitation and hostility in his normally unclouded blue eyes. I omitted nothing. I told the man everything – and I do mean **everything** – I had done. I ended with, "And so, Sir, I know I don't deserve it, and I know you have no reason to trust me, but I'd like to offer my services to –" a deep breath "– to the resistance against the Dark Lord." 

He studied me calmly for one of those seconds that seems like an hour. Dumbledore's stare is unnerving, let me tell you. 

"I do believe you, Severus," he said, finally. "God forgive me if I am wrong, but I believe you. As long as you contact me, and only me, I have no problem with your desire to help our side. And if," he paused, rising, for it was clear he had more important things to do than listen to my sob story, "I am in error, I do pray it is on the side of mercy. Get some sleep, Severus, it looks like you could use it. I will be in contact with you by owl shortly." 

That was that. From that moment on, I was heart and soul for Dumbledore. I was a traitor for a good four months before my fellows began to suspect anything. It was not long after, however, before they caught on. They never gave me false information, but I was "accidentally" not invited to meetings or let in on their secrets. 

It was for this reason that I was not given any of the information of the attack on the Potters until it was too late. I still remember the exact moment I heard – I was conversing with Macnair, for some reason, when a distant clock chimed nine. He stopped in the middle of a sentence and gave me a nasty smile. 

"Oh, dear. I had quite forgotten. Did you know, Severus, that little Harry Potter is being orphaned even as we speak?" 

All the thoughts left my brain. I must have lost all color. I expect Macnair enjoyed the look on my face. 

"W- What?" 

"Oh. Weren't you informed?"

"You know perfectly well I wasn't."

"Ah, well. Wormtail gave the Potters up. Master should be relieving the world of their presence right about now." 

That sentence closed the darkest chapter of my life. I am, of course, glad of that. How could I not be? 

Yet I am still haunted by that silence sometimes, in the dead of the night. I still see my parents' faces when I close my eyes. 

And I still see my past, my victims, the man that could have been my friend in a different time, in Potter's eyes. 


End file.
